Agreed.
I was in Punta Gorda and saw it first hand three days after Hurrciane Charley hit. Federal asset deployment was not an issue. FEMA already had temporary housing set up. the National Guard was there in force. I agree that Florida had a better plan, but there's no question the Feds got on the ball much more quickly then, and I have to wonder how much of it was due to the fact that 2004 was an election year in an important electoral state.
Matt Macchiarolo did pass the time by typing:
Florida gets lots of practice. Florida also drains off three edges and sits above (or just above) water for the most part.
NO has had some real corruption issues in the past (and probably still has them).
The FED leadership has also fallen in quality since Charley. The real leaders are retiring and the ass kissing sycophants have taken over.
Me, I'm still packed (since 1 Sep) and ready to go help fix communication issues in the gulf but my bosses still haven't heard from their bosses boss if we will be needed.
the "crack" on new orleans is the failure of the "victims" to accept personal responsibility for both their decisions and their well being.
i re-read your post and this is certainly the implication that i interpreted. you went from talking about the current administration to talking about building the levee. since you say thats not what you meant i accept that, and im just pointing out why your message was interpreted that way.
I can assure you, Matt, that if these comments were not true, the MSM would be blaring "BUSH LIES AS NEW ORLEANS DIES" on every newspaper and television news report from here to eternity.
Nevertheless, the media has reported the existence of MREs without mentioning the source (one source even refused to mention that they were MREs).
Had the press any inclination that this food and water had been provided by the local authorities, they most certainly would have said so.
"When they got hungry, there was not the beer-and-hot dog fare served up at Saints football games. More than 10,000 refugees from Katrina dined on the same instant meals as U.S. soldiers in Iraq, fitting because it was soldiers who were watching over them now."
-- msosborn at msosborn dot com
By then there won't be enough oil to to run the refineries.
B
Here's the short answer(s):
The mayor of NO delayed in ordering an evacutation, then failed to provide the means to evacuate, by not using the many buses now flooded.
The mayor also sent thousands of people to the Superdome & the convention center without providing sufficient personnel & materiel resources for relief.
The governor of Louisiana failed to: Call up Nat'l Guard troops to aid in pre-hurricane evacuation & post-hurricane relief, waiting until Thursday to request the 40,000 that were needed the day after. Actually, they may not have needed that many if they'd been on the ball before the storm landed.
Invoke a multi-state aid compact to draw resources from other states (Texas being the only one not affected by the storm).
There are conflicting reports on whether the governor made a timely declaration of a state of emergency.
Both parties failed to communicate with each other, the public, and the Federal government.
BIt is hard to get the money to prepare and empower a staff, when all you have is projections of what is needed. In Colorado, and most other places, we have what is called a "hundred year flood", a "five hundred year flood", etc. You can get away with ignoring what a five hundred year flood is capable of, for a while. Once you get one, you are going to be pretty well prepared for the next one, for a generation at least. I just saw on the Spanish TV, that they are sending cops and fire fighters who lived through the Trade Center attack, to help out. Nothing beats experience, to tell what works and what doesn't.
An analytical critique is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. Let's hope that we get one anyway.
Earle
There will be, that's the energy chicken-littles that have been clucking we will be out of oil in the next ten years, every year since the last oil shortage. There are lots of oil fields even larger than sandy arabia. Problem is they are in less than desirable parts of the world. Even the Athabasca Oil Sands are a huge reserve. Just too expensive (up till now) to produce.
I do expect to see ethanol production increase as the next liquid fuel or as part of the fuel-cell industry. That's where we should go since it's a fully sustainable product.
As I understand it, it takes more than one unit of energy to create one unit of energy from ethanol. It is an energy losing endeavor.
Ethanol can be said to be efficient only when the power from ethanol replaces the power from fossil fuels in the production of ethanol.
Currently, ethanol is an expensive subsidy to corn growing states and has no chance of becoming a useful fuel.
-- msosborn at msosborn dot com
Just like anything, take the below with a grain of salt. I'm sure everyone, no matter which camp they are in, have their own agenda. (I didn't write it, I just found it interesting considering the accusations that have been flying)
This is a post from a fellow over in Merritt Is, FL, a reporter who's been researching what went on before the storm hit
I think all of Mayor Nagin's pomp and posturing is going to bite him hard in the near future as the lies and distortions of his interviews are coming to light.
On Friday night before the storm hit Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of New Orleans and they said they'd take it under consideration. This was after the NOAA buoy 240 miles south had recorded 68' waves before it was destroyed.
President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency Act).
Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up.
He was told that they didn't think it necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the President's final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in.
Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal assistance, that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin mandatory evacuation.
After a personal plea from the President, Mayor Nagin agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers requesting and authorizing federal action.
In frustration the President declared the area a national disaster
area before the state of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced preparations. Rumor has it that the President's legal advisers were looking into the ramifications of using the insurgency act to bypass the Constitutional requirement that a state request federal aid before the federal government can move into state with troops - but that had not been done since 1906 and the Constitutionality of it was called into question to use before the disaster.
Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to New Orleans for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted to fund a marina and support the gambling ships.
Toss in the investigation that will look into why the emergency
preparedness plan submitted to the federal government for funding and published on the city's website was never implemented and in fact may have been bogus for the purpose of gaining additional federal funding as we now learn that the organizations identified in the plan were never contacted or coordinating into any planning - though the document implies that they were.
The suffering people of New Orleans need to be asking some hard questions as do we all, but they better start with why Blanco refused to even sign the multi-state mutual aid pack activation documents until Wednesday which further delayed the legal deployment of National Guard from adjoining states.
Or maybe ask why Nagin keeps harping that the President should
have commandeered 500 Greyhound busses to help him when according to his own emergency plan and documents he claimed to have over 500 busses at his disposal to use between the local school busses and the city transportation busses - but he never raised a finger to prepare them or activate them.
This is a sad time for all of us to see that a major city has all but been destroyed and thousands of people have died with hundreds of thousands more suffering, but it's certainly not a time for people to be pointing fingers and trying to find a bigger dog to blame for local corruption and incompetence. Pray to God for the survivors that they can start their lives anew as fast as possible and we learn from all the mistakes to avoid them in the future.
-- msosborn at msosborn dot com
By the way, the Washington Post has an excellent in-depth article about the failures that went into the Katrina preparations/recovery. You have to register to read articles at the Post, but I've never, ever received one piece of spam from that registration. Check here:
B
With this link you can read the following, registered or not (page 4):
"The only thing I can say to them is I hope they have a hotel room, and it's a least on the third floor and up," Nagin said. "Unfortunately, unless they can rent a car to get out of town, which I doubt they can at this point, they're probably in the position of riding the storm out." In fact, while the last regularly scheduled train out of town had left a few hours earlier, Amtrak had decided to run a "dead-head" train that evening to move equipment out of the city. It was headed for high ground in Macomb, Miss., and it had room for several hundred passengers. "We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm's way," said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. "The city declined."
So the ghost train left New Orleans at 8:30 p.m., with no passengers on board."
From the same link (page 5):
"At the Superdome, city officials reckoned that 9,000 people had arrived by evening to ride out the storm. FEMA had sent seven trailers full of food and water -- enough, it estimated, to supply two days of food for as many as 22,000 people and three days of water for 30,000. Ebbert said he knew conditions in the Superdome would be "horrible," but Hurricane Pam had predicted a massive federal response within two days, and Ebbert said the city's plan was to "hang in there for 48 hours and wait for the cavalry."
-- msosborn at msosborn dot com
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